Not true. Okinawans have been historically oppressed by Japanese from the main islands, yet they have the highest life expectancy of any people in the world. But continue your trolling.

Trolling? You specifically invited me into this thread.

I retract what I said about women being the only oppressed group to have a longer life expectancy. Asian-Americans also have longer life expectancies than white Americans.

However, it is typical to see, as a public health outcome, oppressed groups with lower life expectancies (quick example - indigenous Australians and Americans, and black Americans). Women live longer than men, on average. That gap has increased from one year around a hundred years ago to five years now. It's evidence that the traditional narrative of sexism is false.

If by sexism you mean "men have historically and continue to oppress the class 'women' for the express benefit of the class 'men'", then no, sexism does not exists. Societies have developed gender roles to which each of the biological sexes is constrained. Male gender roles have tended toward those generating more income, occupying more political power, but also more dangerous and life-threatening.

This means that yes, women are marginalized in places like the military and politics. They also do not occupy most of the high wage jobs.

Are men using women to put men ahead? No, men perform their gender roles for the benefit of society, as women do. Societies which developed certain cultural memes were more likely to survive. Western culture survived by putting men is places of power and danger, and women in places of powerlessness and safety.

To assert the narrative of male-benefiting institutionalize sexism is to say that men have used marginalization of women to make their own lives better for them. This is not true. It also depends on what is "better". If we truly eliminate all gender differences, is it better for workplace deaths to be 50% female than 5% female? Is it better for women to live 2.5 years shorter? Is it better for women to make more money? These depend upon individual value systems. There are a good many biological males who want to be women - three times as many biological females who have decided that they are men.

Sexism, institutionalized discrimination of females by those with power, men, does not exist. Racism, the institutionalized discrimination of blacks by those with power, whites, does exist. The idea that "women" are oppressed like blacks or Australian aborigines or other oppressed classes is ridiculous.

Gender roles and sex-based discrimination exist. Systematic oppression of women does not exist.

Now for trolling - if the subjective experience of oppression can only be understood by the oppressed, and they are the only ones who can talk about their issues and create their spaces, I declare all of society a female space and this thread a male space. I am oppressed, and women denying my oppression is privilege-blindness. Since only a white male can say whether or not white males are oppressed, I declare us oppressed.

De wimmens are supposed to be confined to roles that best suit their gentle female nature. So what if those roles pay less? It's for their own protection. Women would never survive if they didn't have Big Bad Men willing to protect them and die for them

Have I stated that I believed women should be confined to these roles?

No, I've stated that gender discrimination exists. I also think it shouldn't. But these rich, white women belly-aching about their oppression is as obnoxious to me as my alleged belly-aching about my oppression as a rich, white male is to most JCers.

Societies also survive through developing memes of violent conquest (like Rome - oh, and Western Civilization too! Ever hear of this thing called colonization?). Doesn't mean I support violent conquest.

It means that most of the people on this forum lead relatively privileged (in the traditional sense, not in the Marxism but applied to race or sex sense) lives and their complaints about certain problems in their lives are more minor than they appear to themselves.

It means that most of the people on this forum lead relatively privileged (in the traditional sense, not in the Marxism but applied to race or sex sense) lives and their complaints about certain problems in their lives are more minor than they appear to themselves.

So? Does this mean that people shouldn't take issue if they are discriminated against or treated differently because of their gender, color, sexuality or creed?

"Oh man, I can't believe that I'm being paid thousands of dollars less than the previous guy because of my gender. Well at least I have internet access!"

It means that most of the people on this forum lead relatively privileged (in the traditional sense, not in the Marxism but applied to race or sex sense) lives and their complaints about certain problems in their lives are more minor than they appear to themselves.

You might not be rich in America (last I recall you live in Colorado), but if you make what the median female high school graduate makes in the United States, you're in the top 3% worldwide.

And I wasn't specifically thinking of you as white. SLG is, for example - as are many of the other female posters in here.

Also, every female in this thread has Internet access.

And being wealthy or of a particular race does not mean that you can't experience very real -- and, yes, institutionalized -- discrimination. Men in industrialized nations most certainly have their own hurdles to overcome (particularly in terms of domestic violence, obtaining custody of children, and divorce proceedings) when it comes to fully equality, but that doesn't mitigate the horrible sexism that a lot of women endure. Both are horrifically lamentable.

I have a close friend, for instance, who was sexually harassed by a male professor at her university -- one of the best schools in the nation -- while working on a research project. Not only did the administration do nothing when informed of his actions, they told my friend that she had to complete her research project under this professor or she would receive no credit.

Discrimination is rampant across the world, across a variety of categories. But that doesn't make an individual's suffering less real -- nor less worthy of attention.

Societies also survive through developing memes of violent conquest (like Rome - oh, and Western Civilization too! Ever hear of this thing called colonization?). Doesn't mean I support violent conquest.

Even assuming your thesis about gender roles being necessary for the survival of civilization is true (debatable!), that doesn't mean that it's neither institutionalized nor oppressive. It also doesn't mean that it's not backwards.

Glad you brought up Rome. The Roman Empire would not have been as spectacular as it was without slavery. By ancient standards, the Romans were pretty good about slaves: they treated them better than most, and they offered avenues of social advancement and freedom -- some Greeks even sold themselves into slavery to advance their family's prosperity. At the time, Roman slavery was more enlightened than most western civilizations.

But guess what? I, sitting in this chair in 2013, would never say something like "slavery wasn't institutionalized oppression!" It was institutionalized oppression, BY DEFINITION. And if there were some facets of Roman slavery which survived today -- like there are with American slavery, or with patriarchal oppression of women, I would point that out too.

Even assuming your thesis about gender roles being necessary for the survival of civilization is true (debatable!), that doesn't mean that it's neither institutionalized nor oppressive. It also doesn't mean that it's not backwards.

Glad you brought up Rome. The Roman Empire would not have been as spectacular as it was without slavery. By ancient standards, the Romans were pretty good about slaves: they treated them better than most, and they offered avenues of social advancement and freedom -- some Greeks even sold themselves into slavery to advance their family's prosperity. At the time, Roman slavery was more enlightened than most western civilizations.

But guess what? I, sitting in this chair in 2013, would never say something like "slavery wasn't institutionalized oppression!" It was institutionalized oppression, BY DEFINITION. And if there were some facets of Roman slavery which survived today -- like there are with American slavery, or with patriarchal oppression of women, I would point that out too.

Soooo will you at least acknowledge that I didn't say women should be restricted to gender roles? Because that's the whole point of this convo.

@PiettsHat : my sister taught high school math and once got a very sexually explicit message from a student who typed it into a graphing calculator. When she reported the incident, the principal's initial response was, "Honey, if you weren't so beautiful, this wouldn't happen."

But she's a wealthy white woman and...wait for it...she's good looking. I guess she can't complain.